


telling

by taizi



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, kitanishi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 05:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10298990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “You can cry if you need to, it’salright. No one’s gonna think badly of you.” Soft, stubborn Satoru hugs him tight, cheek pressed to the top of his head, and adds, “Who would I tell, anyway?”





	

Atsushi is nine years old when the family cat dies. Mana cries and cries, and Atsushi holds her as tight as he can while their father digs a little grave for their kitten in the yard.

Atsushi is twelve when he breaks his arm falling out of a tree. His mother is pale with worry for him, and takes a whole day off work to sit with him at the doctor’s office.

Now Atsushi is fifteen, and his father catches a cold that puts him back in the hospital. Mana is away with their grandparents, and his mother is away for work, and the doctors didn’t want Atsushi in the way. He’s alone in the waiting room, arms folded tight around his middle, foot tapping an anxious tattoo on the tile floor.

He sent Satoru a text in the ambulance. It takes Satoru sixteen minutes to meet him. He bursts through the door, red face and flyaway hair, and in the back of his mind Atsushi is absolutely certain he ran the whole way here.

Satoru doesn’t always know what to say or do, but he has always, always shown up. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, hurrying across the room and falling into the chair next to Atsushi’s gracelessly, “I came as soon as I – is he okay? Are you okay?”

And Atsushi remembers being nine, aching to cry over his dead cat and comforting his sister instead. Remembers being twelve, aching to cry over a broken arm and putting on a strong face for his mother instead.

Now he’s fifteen and his father is sick again after he only just got well enough to come home, and Satoru’s worried face eats away at him but Atsushi can’t think of anything to say that will make it better. He can’t think of anything to say at all, because there’s a wincing pressure in the pit of his chest and even with as hard as he’s holding himself together he’s teetering on the brink of coming apart.

“Acchan,” Satoru says, and it sounds like he’s been saying it over and over. “Acchan, hey. You’re doing that thing again. I _hate_ that thing you do.”

The legs of his chair drag across the floor with a sharp squeal, his hand on Atsushi’s shoulder moving to wrap around his back instead, a warm press of a solid arm that draws Atsushi closer. Even his fingers in Atsushi’s hair are familiar, a touch Atsushi can trace back years and years. 

“You can cry if you need to, it’s _alright._  No one’s gonna think badly of you.” Soft, stubborn Satoru hugs him tight, cheek pressed to the top of his head, and adds, “Who would I tell, anyway?”

Atsushi nods, because that sounds right, and then he keeps nodding, face buried in Satoru’s shoulder, hands folding into fists in his shirt, tears burning and blurring the world. 

A nurse finds them that way thirty-some minutes later, and if she notices Atsushi’s eyes are red and swollen, she doesn’t comment. His father is going to be just fine, she tells him with a kind smile, and they can see him now. 

She leads the way down the hall at a brisk pace, and if she notices Atsushi’s hand in Satoru’s, fingers threaded together and knuckles white from how hard they’re holding on, she doesn’t comment. 

Once Atsushi was five years old, and he met his best friend in the fading sunlight of a late autumn afternoon. Atsushi was curled around a skinned knee, eyes watering and face screwed up, and a cheerful boy with a gap-toothed smile crouched beside him. 

 _“You can cry if you want,”_ Satoru said that day, _“I won’t tell.”_


End file.
